No Name in the Street was dismissed by contemporary critics

Evidence

Upon its appearance, No Name did little to reverse shifting opinions about Baldwin among critics. The New York Times was only slightly more complimentary of this effort than of Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone, saying that the new book “evades the crucial question” and that “for the most part, the ideological discourse is either too abstract and facile or too obvious to impress.” Summing up its reception, The New York Review of Books noted that “Baldwin’s newest essay seems to have been received with general disappointment.” — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 373

Categorization

• XREF: Documented critical dismissal is ammunition for the reader’s argument that late Baldwin is unfairly recanonized-away.